By Mike Dennis, Director of Community Organizing at the East LA Community Corporation

“The two-day process every week is a hustle. I go to sleep late every Friday night because my preparations begin in the afternoon. The meat is key — if it’s cooked wrong then the pozole will go to waste. I need to make sure I have all my ingredients — from salt and pepper to onions, garlic, dried oregano, coriander seeds, red chile chile powder, hominy, fresh cilantro, lemon wedges, green onions and, of course, the meat. I make sure to find the freshest meat possible. Then I’m ready to cook my special recipe. This is my Friday and Saturday. Every week.”

Anonymous street vendor in LA, 2014

Street food is all the rage in Los Angeles. No less than two food trucks made Jonathan Gold’s annual assessment of the "101 Best Restaurants in Los Angeles": Mariscos Jaliscos in Boyle Heights and Guerrilla Tacos in the Arts District. The food at the Goldhirsh Foundation’s LA 2050 party in Grand Park last month was provided by food trucks. For a while, Chef Susan Feniger featured street food from around the globe at her Hollywood restaurant called “Street.” And of course the hunger pangs of countless workers and tens of thousands of CicLAvia-goers are eased with food from trucks.

But what of the food from the self-propelled street vendors — those without trucks? What about the pozole vendor quoted above? Well, since 1980 in the eyes of the City of Los Angeles, the self-propelled vendors are engaged in criminal activity. That’s why when Arlene Cardona, a high school student from the Los Angeles School of Global Studies, talked to our pozole vendor the woman asked to remain anonymous out of fear that the authorities would come for her and put her out of work. Literally thousands of vendors operate their business with this fear. The little they have is all they have, and they stand to lose everything.

According the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, there are more than 10,000 to 20,000 unlicensed vendors in Los Angeles. That's because for workers who face multiple barriers to employment, and for those who lost their jobs in the food service and construction industries during the Great Recession, street vending is one of few ways they can support their families.

Deep Local Roots

Despite the fact that many think LA’s burgeoning street food culture is something new, street vending in Los Angeles has been around for more than 100 years. Back then you could pay a fee and become a licensed peddler — and peddle your food on foot, with a horse and wagon, or from a stand on the sidewalk. Fast forward to today, when the City is operating under a 34-year-old-law that makes such vending illegal, a crime punishable with jail time, fines, and possible deportation. This can make street vending an ugly ordeal for people struggling to find ways to pay the bills and to put food in their mouths — and ours. The punitive nature of LA’s outdated ban means the continual harassment, undignified treatment and criminal prosecution of vendors by the police, the business lobby, and even some homeowner groups.

Los Angeles is missing an opportunity to embrace a home-grown strategy that can make our communities better and more interesting places in which to live. Street vending can activate our streets, making them more culturally vibrant and safer. Street vending can help alleviate poverty by offering people who haven’t found work in the near-jobless recovery an opportunity for gainful self-employment. Street vending could even help combat food deserts in low-income communities of color. Out of the nation’s 10 largest cities, Los Angeles is the only one without a comprehensive street vending program. City Hall needs to wake up and smell the champurrado!

Street vending in Boyle Heights is successful because some of the vendors have been part of the community for a very long time. Most vendors who live in the community tend to set up business close to their homes or in an area they know well. Overall, vendors who work in communities know their clientele and their tastes in food, and the vendors' experience allows them to have a great understanding of their craft as well as the knowledge and experience required for the successful selection of a site, the food on the menu, and the right prices and best way to advertise.

LA Street Vendor Campaign Seeks Legalization

East LA Community Corporation (ELACC) has been working with street vendors since 2007. At the beginning of 2011 we began partnering with the Los Angeles Food Policy Council’s Street Food Working Group, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights Los Angeles (CHIRLA), Leadership for Urban Renewal Network (LURN), and a handful of other community groups. The Los Angeles Street Vendor Campaign, now comprised of 55 organizations across the city, is pushing for legalization of the sale of food on LA’s sidewalks and the creation of incentives for vendors who sell healthy foods. But it’s not just about food; the campaign also seeks to create a way for vendors to sell general merchandise. We believe that public space should foster entrepreneurship, and help folks provide for their families.

The campaign sees street vending as a good opportunity for building community and building economic development strategies that work for the residents of neighborhoods like Boyle Heights. The jobs of tomorrow are not here today, and people in our neighborhoods need to support their families now. Through technical assistance, popular education, and traditional neighborhood organizing, the Street Vendor Campaign has put forth a detailed plan for a citywide permit system that has the support of vendors, residents, and small businesses.

If passed, this policy not only unlocks a monumental opportunity for low income entrepreneurs, it embodies bottom-up policy-making in a way seldom done in the City of Los Angeles. Literally hundreds of community members worked with a team of community lawyers to create this system, which is laid out in the plan. The campaign seeks to put those people who are most affected by policies at the table with decision-makers who put the policies in place, so that the anonymous vendor above who recounts how she goes about preparing her pozole doesn't have to continue to operate in the shadows. We’d do well to remember that these are some of the hardest-working Angelenos in the city, and that it's time the City of Los Angeles recognizes the importance of their wonderful contributions.

On December 2, 2014, the LA City Council’s Economic Development Committee will finalize draft language and move it to a full council vote. To get involved in the LA Street Vendor Campaign, visit us on facebook.com/LAStreetVendorCampaign, or search our hashtag #LAStreetVendors.